Analysis Of Anglo-saxon Elements In Old-english Poems The Wanderer And The Seafarer

In the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer, the narrator depicts a man who is having a religious conflict between his old pagan practices and the recent Christian ideology. Detachment from his fellow kinsmen and lord is seen as the worst fate conceivable. The Seafarer outlines the forlorn adversities of life on the frigid sea.

He describes the restless feelings, cold-wetness, and isolation of the sea voyage in opposition to a life on land where men are encompassed by kinsmen, free from threats, and stocked on food and wine. Anglo-Saxons trusted in fate, glory, and riches as well as the belief that it was not feasible to alter one’s predetermined destiny in life. While the two texts each describe different experiences, The Seafarer and The Wanderer both convey the defining characteristics of the Anglo-Saxons and offer a fatalistic view of life in northern Europe in the early middle ages.

The Wanderer expresses many ideas and principles that illustrate the perception of fatalism in the Anglo-Saxon way of life. The importance of fate is shown at the very beginning of the poem. The speaker is talking about wyrd (fate) being a force that is immutable. “...and walk in exile’s paths. Wyrd is fully fixed!” (line 5). “The Wanderer” justifies that the Anglo-Saxons did not have much to live for and plenty to dread.

The poem highlights stoic emptiness and stern hopelessness by using expressions such as, “…what a bitter companion/Shoulder to shoulder sorrow can be,” (lines 26-27) and “Wretchedness fills the realm of earth,” (98). These lines also demonstrate that along with their perspective on life as a whole, fate commands the pagans’ choices as well as their lack of decisions.

The castaway warrior portrayed in the poem has had many encounters with a relentless fate, of which the recent loss of his lord is the most severe. “no man may be wise before he's lived his share of winters in the world' (line 71), the wanderer realizes that in the end, it is the persistent confrontations with the force of fate that made him attain wisdom. Essentially, The Wanderer shows the fatalistic outlook many people held at this time.

The Seafarer contains language, imagery, and structure that presents the Anglo-Saxon belief in a predetermined future and subjugation of all events or actions to destiny. The seafarer himself can be seen as an example of fatalism. It is clear that he believes in a pagan structure in which fate determines the breadth of a man’s life

“Always and invariably,/one of three things/will create uncertainty/before [man's] fated hour:/disease, or old age,/or the sword's hatred/will tear out life/from those doomed to die. (ll. 68a-71b)

The words uncertainty and warfare in the lines above summarize the way the Anglo-Saxons see life on Earth: the end of one’s life may arrive ahead one's fated moment by illness, age, or warfare, and there is no manner, in a pagan belief structure, to assemble for the final demise. Warfare is a perpetual aspect in Anglo-Saxon life and is the most common way to die, besides sickness. The Seafarer shows us that life for people at the time was brief, brutish, and fierce.

Another example of the supreme power of fate is observed within lines 39-43. Here the Seafarer is withdrawing all his emotions and feelings to give an image to the reader that even though his life may be regulated by fate, he fully acknowledges the path in life that is chosen for him and perceives the authority and wrath the external force of fate has.

Even in the portion of the tale that is thoroughly Christian, God seems to be classified with wyrd. It is beyond the bounds of possibility for a man to combat his fate, despite anything else. Yet again the fatalistic ideology is present as the seafarer feels compelled to this life of wandering by something in himself ('my soul called me eagerly out'). He wonders what will become of him ('what Fate has willed').

From this it is seen that with fatalism, people did not see themselves as able to really control any outcomes of their lives, but instead succumbed to what their fate and their destiny has ruled them. The text also gives a diction of life in the Anglo-Saxon time, which ultimately diminishes itself to death by illness, old age, and battle.